Please help us continue to provide you with free, quality journalism by turning off your ad blocker on our site.

Thank you for signing in.

If this is your first time registering, please check your inbox for more information about the benefits of your Forbes account and what you can do next!

I agree to receive occasional updates and announcements about Forbes products and services. You may opt out at any time.

I'd like to receive the Forbes Daily Dozen newsletter to get the top 12 headlines every morning.

Forbes takes privacy seriously and is committed to transparency. We will never share your email address with third parties without your permission. By signing in, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Statement.

Hermès Launches The Nautilus Pen Designed By Marc Newson As The Centerpiece Of Its First-Ever Complete Writing Collection

It might be immediately associated with the fictional submarine captained by Nemo in Jules Verne’s novels Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and The Mysterious Island, but the Nautilus will from now on be known as the name Hermès has given to its new writing instrument. Conceived by Australian superstar industrial designer Marc Newson and developed with Japan’s most respected pen manufacturer Pilot recognized for its technical expertise, the high-end capless pen whose nib retracts in one fluid movement marks the French luxury brand’s launch of a new category of objects that also includes notebooks, envelopes, writing paper, postcards and leather accessories.

The Hermès Nautilus fountain and ballpoint pens designed by Marc Newson (Photo courtesy of Hermès)

Unveiled last July at the 19th-century fine-art printing studio, Idem, located in the Montparnasse district of Paris, the Nautilus is also a first for Newson who had never designed a pen himself. The fountain pen made of solid aluminum and stainless steel with a rhodium-plated white gold nib is available in three colors and six nib widths. Inks come in black and carbon blue, as well as three exclusive signature Hermès colors: H red, ebony and blood orange. There is also a ballpoint version with two widths. In true Hermès style, we were invited to participate in a series of writing games – from composing love letters and a graphology session to the discovery of a high-tech device that inverts, replicates and animates anything you scribble down – amidst rows of historic flatbed machines and an exceptional collection of hand presses under an immense glass roof.

Master printers were busy at work producing unique lithographs based on the drawing of a horse by French illustrator Philippe Dumas, who had test-driven the new Nautilus in a broad nib with black ink, while Hermès’ artistic director Pierre-Alexis Dumas held up a tiny orange box of ink cartridges, joking that it would be the cheapest item sold in the brand’s stores, priced at €7. He recalled that when he initially told Newson about his pen project, he found out that the designer used the same Pilot Capless fountain pen as his father: “My father, Jean-Louis Dumas, was fascinated by Japan. He traveled there often. Having that pen on him the whole time was like living with a fragment of Japanese culture… He often said, ‘If Hermès made a pen, it would have a retractable nib.’”

The Hermès Nautilus pen has a flat base so it won't roll off the table (Photo courtesy of Hermès)

And now, as fate would have it, his words have become reality. A nautilus also happens to be the name for a marine mollusk with a smooth shell, and the pen’s simple, clean lines lend it a sense of mystery with nothing to suggest that it’s a writing instrument: no lid, no ring, no clip. Newson remarks, “All of this pen’s subtlety derives from the way it works. At first glance, it looks anachronistic. There’s nothing technological about its appearance. It looks easy to use, obvious, instinctual. But it’s hiding a mechanism that’s part genius, part magic! A mechanism that’s given rise to a whole new gesture. This is neither the logic of a screw-on lid nor a press button system. You just twist it, turning the body of the pen, which opens and closes neatly and very gently.”

Notebook with blank vellum paper featuring a cover in silk twill, whose design was taken from a... [+] Hermès silk scarf, from the Writing Objects collection (Photo courtesy of Hermès)

Newson always begins the design process with a sketch: “There’s nothing more spontaneous than using a pen and paper because it’s so gestural. You don’t even think about it. You don’t have to learn a language to be able to do that. That’s my interface with the real world. You simply can’t work like that on a computer. That’s the functional side. Then there’s the philosophical side. We’re all philosophical entities; we’re not machines.” Although the pen may at first appear easy to make, its design and development required approximately three years, as it involved fitting a rotating mechanism inside a very small space. Newson says, “This is the most complex object you could hope to design from an industrial design perspective. It’s sort of like a watch inside – there are about 300 moving parts. The size makes things more complex because you have to work on a much smaller scale.”

I’ve been a luxury lifestyle writer and editor for 14 years, meaning I’ve met with today’s movers and shakers and gone behind the scenes to observe master craftsmen at

…

I’ve been a luxury lifestyle writer and editor for 14 years, meaning I’ve met with today’s movers and shakers and gone behind the scenes to observe master craftsmen at work creating everything from Cartier timepieces and Moynat handbags to Rolls-Royce cars and Riva yachts. I’ve rubbed shoulders with the biggest names in luxury, partied with celebrities and hung out with the most exciting artists and designers of our generation, while watching out for the rising stars of art, design, architecture, horology and jewellery. For the sake of lifestyle journalism, I’ve interviewed the likes of Monica Bellucci, Lenny Kravitz, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, David Adjaye, Frank Gehry, Shigeru Ban, Karim Rashid, Marc Newson, David LaChapelle and Yue Minjun, sharing my insights with readers of Robb Report, T Magazine, Artinfo.com, International Watch, The Peak, Asia Tatler, Prestige, Surface, Watch Journal, Manifesto, Art Republik and The Straits Times, among others. I have the best job in the world.